The Duke Blue Devils have won 14 straight games and are 18-2 this season, making them early favorites in March Madness forecasts. Jon Scheyer has done an excellent job on the field and in the locker room, but it’s difficult to ignore the advantages of traditional recruiting. Duke simply has an abundance of talent that few other collegiate teams can match.
Cooper Flagg is, of course, the star. Flagg, a projected first-round choice since high school, has outperformed expectations as a freshman. In addition to his outstanding defensive performance, he has emerged as a strong offensive pillar, averaging 22.1 points, 7.7 rebounds, and 4.1 assists on.508/.360/847 splits since the calendar turned to December.
Flagg’s game has very few holes to poke. He struggled from three points early in the season, but he has since developed into a dynamic scoring threat at all three levels. Flagg’s early-season failures have shaped him into a better all-around player. There will be no more ill-timed turnovers in crunch time. Flagg, who is barely a month over his 18th birthday, is the top player in college basketball and the favorite of every tanking NBA team.
In terms of where he should play at the next level, several considerations may favor the Brooklyn Nets, not the least of which is their head coach.
Cooper Flagg might welcome Jordi Fernandez’s tough love as the Nets head coach.
The Nets are definitely in tank mode after dealing Dennis Schroder to the Golden State Warriors and Dorian Finney-Smith to the Los Angeles Lakers, with Cam Johnson likely to follow suit before Thursday’s NBA trade deadline.
Having said that, Jordi Fernandez has done an excellent job in his debut season as head coach, regularly getting the most out of a constrained group. Fernandez’s inventive strategy and good awareness of rotations are one thing, but it is his ability to handle the locker room and encourage his players that truly distinguishes him.
Fernandez has become well-known for his tough-love approach, which involves communicating candidly with his players and promoting progress through ruthless honesty. That is what Flagg values in a head coach.
Here’s what he said about Jon Scheyer during a recent interview with the New York Post.
“Coach [Scheyer] is always honest with me about what he thinks, and that’s one of the reasons I chose him to be my coach,” Flagg told the audience. “He’s always honest with me and keeps it 100 percent. So, that’s what I expect from a coach, and that’s what he provides.”
Flagg also attended Monteverde Academy, which has a lengthy history of producing NBA players, including four current Nets players. Kevin Boyle, the potential No. 1 pick’s high school coach, had a similar track record of holding his players accountable. Dariq Whitehead, one of Boyle’s professional children and a fellow Duke product, believes Flagg would fit in well with the Nets’ ethos.
“Everybody in the top [echelon] in the country, they have a great skill set,” Whitehead told the New York Post. “But he is having a lot of fun with it. You’ve got a lot of top guys; their skill set pulls them through. He has an advantage over his opponents when he plays. He goes out and plays as if he’s the last man on the bench. That’s what distinguishes him from a lot of other players, his attitude of going out there and playing as if he’s not the best player in the country, which he is.”
Brooklyn presently has the fifth-best chance of landing the No. 1 pick on draft night, at 10.5 percent. The Nets’ roster resembles unmolded clay, with promising young players to build around, but also a lot of cap space and future draft picks. That would be an excellent situation for Flagg, allowing the Nets to immediately scale up and grow around him if the 18-year-old ends up in the borough.
The fact that Fernandez is the type of coach Flagg admires is the cherry on top.
Leave a Reply